Here I wanted to take a moment to start a trend. This is my Soul thread; there are many like it, but this one is mine. In it I would like to do something I have seen few others do, which is explain WHY I chose these Souls. The whole reason why Elitist Jerks, etc, and cookie cutter specs are bad is because people do not know the reasoning behind the spec and what it will do for them. It is my hope that if people do end up copying my specs, or any others for that matter, that they will at least know how to put them to good use. Because face it, although this system has incredible amounts of play room for creativity, there are always going to be people who just aren't able to think it through for themselves. Or, the type that I am hoping get the most use out of my ramblings, are the people who just need a springboard, a starting point, to get them familiar with things so they can get their own creativity flowing.

After playing around with all four Callings, and all the souls except pvp ones in Beta event 6 (cleric 23, warrior 19, rogue 18, mage 15) and a bit of experience from other MMOs (prot/holy pally, disc/holy priest, blood/frost dk in WoW, along with numerous alts covering all the other classes, some multiple times -_-) I theorycrafted quite a few potential specs.

With all of these specs I will not be discussing the +15% strength/whatever/etc talents because they are self-explanatory.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0ckLu.E0sd0MbGudz.VM.VebozAchampion 34, riftblade 7, paragon 25 Even though the majority of points in this build are in Champion, a 2handed spec, I went for dual-wielding from Paragon because this build focuses on crits to make the most use of the Riftblade's Blade buffs, but also because with dualwielding there will be more basic hits, benefiting the 15% chance to proc Storm Blade on basic hits. Storm Blade is the main focus of the build, in my opinion, and is what will make the final determination as to whether it is a dual-wielding or 2hand build, because with all my experimenting in the beta I could not determine if it was the damage of the weapon that hits, or main hand, or if it averages the damage when dual-wielding. If anyone has any solid info, please let me know because it will redesign the entire build. If it is main hand damage, then having a quick offhand and slow/strong main-hand will be the advantage, whereas if it is the weapon that hits, it will either require 2 slow weapons or rebuilding to a 2hand spec for greater base damage. Also, I am unsure how the DoT functions, whether it overwrites the previous one, adds to it, refreshes it, or creates a new DoT.

-Relevant talents- Grim Satisfaction: crits regain 15 power/5 seconds Lingering Wounds: crits cause a MS 50% healing debuff/15 secs Intense Training: Slayer's Bearing provides 30% increased crit damage Surging Energy: reduces power cost of next ability by 50% after crit. Flowing Strikes: crits increase crit chance 5% for 6 seconds (NOTE: this build avoids Imp flowing strikes for a reason... you will be critting so much you will not need it to last 4 more seconds, it will overlap).

-Build-specific buffs- Mark of Extermination: 20% more damage from crits on primary target (maintain at all times/costs). Slayer's Bearing: buff that increases crit damage by 15%. Storm Blade: crits deal 100% of equipped weapon damage as air damage over 6 seconds. Focus of Body: raid-wide strength buff. Way of the River: adds 3% crit chance (this may be interchangeable with Way of the Mountain, personal preference. I prefer Way of the Mountain, even though it is a crit build, because follow-up attacks make up a good deal of this build's damage) Way of the Mountain: follow-up attacks deal 20% more damage and you cannot be knocked back.

-Abilities- Flinching Strike and Bash: two interrupts, on 10s and 6s cooldowns; as per your needs, you can use one or the other based on power cost or frequency of interrupts, or both if needed. Debilitating Strike: increases finisher damage for 15s; use right before finisher, imo. Inescapable Fury: guaranteed crit follow-up after one of your other attacks misses, not on the Global Cool Down (GCD) this means if you are using Way of the Mountain, you hit for the attacks standard damage +20% damage, +30% crit damage, plus weapon damage over 6s as air damage, regain 15 power/5s, debuff healing on target 50%/15s, gain a 5% crit buff for 6s, and reduce the power cost of your next attack point generating ability by 50% *THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT ATTACK*... use it every time it comes up. Bloodthirst: basically the same as Inescapable Fury except procs from killing blows instead of missing; equally important. Deathblow: an execution attack, deals great amounts of damage to a target below 30% hp. Leg Sweep: slows enemy run speed for 15s; use this to keep monsters from running in terror when they see you coming. Frenzied Strike: follow-up attack that does a lot of damage, procs from crits, not on GCD; with the amount of crits you will be doing, it is a good thing it has a 6s cooldown or you'd be overpowered as heck from spamming this. Fiery Burst: your next attack will deal fire damage over 4 seconds; uses combo points for more damage; not on GCD. Flamespear: ranged fire attack with a DoT, makes a good opener before charging to get an extra combo point early on; more useful than Path of the Wind, but Path of the Tempest is better if you have combo points to spend; Path of the Raptor is a follow-up, so doesn't really compete for this type of use. Bull Rush: a charge that with this build roots the enemy and stuns them for 3 seconds; usable in combat, deals damage. Dual Strike: attack that deals damage, procs a second hit for 24% damage, and increases crit chance by 6%. Thunderous Kick: deals damage and knocks the enemy back. Proper Timing: your next attack is guaranteed to crit, 30s cooldown. Strike Like Iron: combo/finisher, increases damage by 10/20/30% for 12s. Path of the Raptor: follow-up attack, deals damage at range. Path of the Tempest: attacks at range, combo/finisher uses points to increase damage; if you have the points to spend at the opening of a fight, use this to get an attack in before closing with Bull Rush, but if you cannot waste or do not have points, use Flamespear. Shifting Blades: your next three attacks proc a hit from your other weapon for 25/50/75% damage, combo/finisher. Titan's Strike: combo/finisher with 1m cooldown that deals massive damage to one target, stuns it, and deals even more damage to 5 nearby enemies. Wrist Strike: follow-up attack that disarms an enemy for 5s, 30s cooldown. Bladefury: combo/finisher that deals damage to 6 nearby enemies.

-Cast Priority- (this is not a rotation, it is a ranking of which abilities take precedence; if they are not on cooldown and common sense says the situation is correct for them, use the first one in the order. Italic means only if there are multiple targets in range, bold means it is a combo/finisher.) It may seem like there is a lot going on with this priority cast system, but most of these abilities will be on cooldown or inappropriate for the situation. Flamespear/Path of the Tempest > Bull Rush > Wrist Strike (make your tanks/healers happy ^_^) > Inescapable Fury > Bloodthirst > Deathblow > Frenzied Strike > Strike Like Iron > Debilitating Strike > Titan's Strike > Bladefury > Shifting Blades > Mighty Blow > Punishing Blow > Dual Strike > all else based on personal preference or needs of the situation. For example, on initial pull with no combo points to spend and only one target, this would look like: Flamespear > Bull Rush > Wrist Strike(at this point you have two combo points, from Flamespear and Bull Rush; part of what I meant by "common sense says the situation is correct" applies to using combo/finishers at 3 points, so you move on past all the finishers. Many of the other abilities are proc based; for this example we will assume none of them procced.) > Debilitating Strike (now you have 3 combo points and therefore the situation has changed; start over at the beginning. you are in melee range so no need to use the ranged opener or bull rush; wrist strike is on cooldown; assuming the enemy is not already below 30% health, you cannot use Deathblow yet; we are still assuming nothing procced for purposes of the example.) > Strike Like Iron (you have spent your combo points, Debilitating Strike lasts 15s so no need to use it again yet) > Dual Strike x3 (because nothing has procced, there is only one enemy, you are in melee range, Wrist Strike and Debilitating Strike are still on cooldown, and you do not have enough combo points to use a finisher) > Strike Like Iron (it should be off cooldown now). So, all totaled, you only used 5 abilities in that fight before reaching a point where a "rotation" would occur. In a real fight, you would have procs, and therefore have more things to do, but it still will not be near as confusing as it looks on paper. And once the "rotation" starts, you will only have 3 real constant attacks, being Strike Like Iron, Debilitating Strike, and Dual Strike; all others are procced/used on cooldown.

Edited, Feb 10th 2011 6:26pm by ehlionney

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spec-builder, Ehli-san! -~I'm not a strategist, I'm a tactician. Strategy is what you plan out ahead of time, tactics are what you do when you're in the thick, blades swinging and blood flowing. No strategist ever lives to become a hero.~-

-Important Talents- Natural Instincts: increases the pet damage bonus of Fierce Strike by 10%. Iron Bonds/Shared Bonds: boosts all Bond buffs and shares them with your group. Protective Instincts: pet increases stealth detection of the group. Primal Senses: increases stealth detection by 3 levels. Imp Protective Instincts: all allies within range of the Protective Instincts buff have stun duration reduced by 30%. Improved Fork: Fork now hits an additional target. Unrelenting: reduces cooldown on Stonespear and Windspear to 15s. Strike to Maim: you and your pet deal you or your pet's strength as extra damage whenever you crit. Surging Energy: crits reduce the power cost of your next combo point generating attack by 50%. Elemental Touch/Elemental Blade: Your ability attacks deal 150% of your weapon's damage as extra air damage. Enhanced Burst: Burst attacks increase your elemental damage to the target by 30% for 2 seconds per combo point used in the Burst.

-Buffs- Bond of Might: group strength buff. Bond of Feline Grace: group dexterity buff. Summon Greater Primal Companion: your pet. Protective Companion: your pet becomes a tank, and your group gets a 10% armor buff. Enraged Companion: your pet goes on the offensive, dealing more damage and giving your group a 10% damage buff. Storm Blade: crits deal your weapon damage as extra air damage over 6s. Avatar of Wind: increases your dodge by 5% and run speed by 10%. Track Earth Creatures: not sure why this would be all that important, but quite self-explanatory. Avatar of Water: take 5% less damage. Battlefield Distraction: reduces enemy hit chance by 5%.

-Important Abilities- Fierce Strike: deals damage and makes your pet deal 30% more damage to that target for 12 seconds. Tearing Slash: one of many bleed attacks you have, of which the more you stack on a target, the less damage your pet takes while tanking; combo/finisher, lasts 10s. Primal Recovery: a HoT that you can use to heal your pet; heals for 8s, 10s cooldown. Flesh Rip: when your pet crits, you can follow-up with this attack to add a bleed effect for 10s. Slashing Strike: hits 3 targets for damage and causes a bleed effect for 10s. Feral Sweep: hit 6 enemies for damage and a bleed effect for 10s; combo/finisher. Diversion Strike: deals damage and gives a 10% crit buff to your group for 5s; 30s cooldown. Fiery Burst: a combo/finisher that makes your next attack apply a fire DoT effect; not on GCD. Flamespear: ranged fire attack that deals damage and applies a DoT, good for opening attack to add a combo point. Fork: makes your next Spear attack hit 2 extra nearby targets. Stone Shield: forces the next attack aimed at you to miss, 30s cooldown, not on GCD. Thunder Strike: deals damage to primary target and extra air damage to 2 nearby enemies. Stonespear: ranged earth attack that deals damage and roots the enemy; use with Fork to hit 3 targets instead of one; 15s cooldown. Frost Strike: deals damage and makes the next Thunder Strike to hit the target deal 10% more damage. Storm Burst: combo/finisher that makes the next attack shoot chains of lightning out at up to 7 enemies; 8s cooldown, not on GCD. Windspear: deals damage and silences the target; use with Fork to hit 3 instead of one; 15s cooldown. Leader's Mark: a tanking attack that deals damage and increases melee damage done by the group to that target by 5% for 15s; be careful with this attack, as it generates threat; one of the talents in the Riftblade tree that is part of this build reduces threat by 50% at all times, but caution is still advised.

-Casting Priority- (as always, common sense. and also as always, think priority not rotation, any rotation that comes out of it is not because the rotation is the purpose of it, but rather because it just so happened to work that way.) Stone/fire/wind Spear (used in conjunction with Fork as necessary) > Primal Recovery (your pet is a large portion of your DPS, and provides important buffs to the party; keep it alive yourself to save healer's mana and attention) > Flesh Rip > Diversion Strike > Feral Sweep > Storm Burst > Slashing Strike > Frost Strike > Thunder Strike > Tearing Slash > Fiery Burst > Fierce Strike > Frost Strike > Searing Strike. Even though Fierce Strike increases your pet's damage and is very useful, it is still toward the end of the priority because everything before it is either more important to the utility aspect, or will deal more damage; by the time you reach the "rotation" phase of your Time on Target (ToT) you will be using it often enough to keep the buff up. Frost Strike is in the chain of priority twice, once for where it should be when there are multiple enemies, once for single-target; because of the damage buffs you receive through Riftblade, Frost Strike and Searing Strike will do more for your DPS than spamming Fierce Strike; at that point you would use Fierce Strike once to apply the buff to your pet, then Frost Strike to apply the Chilled debuff that increases Searing Strike's damage. The Spear spells should only be used during the ToT if you need a silence or root for any reason; other than that, stick to your melee abilities. Tearing Slash should only be used to keep up the bleed effect, in all other cases use those combo points for Fiery Burst, which will increase the DPS of your Frost/Searing Strike rotation; this is another reason why Fierce Strike goes between Fiery Burst and Frost Strike, because Fiery Burst applies on the next melee attack ability, not when cast, so the Fierce Strike will have the Burst debuff applied in time for your Frost Strike.

Edited, Feb 10th 2011 6:29pm by ehlionney

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spec-builder, Ehli-san! -~I'm not a strategist, I'm a tactician. Strategy is what you plan out ahead of time, tactics are what you do when you're in the thick, blades swinging and blood flowing. No strategist ever lives to become a hero.~-

-Important Talents- Vengeful Wrath/Karmic Resolution: increases Retaliation, Paladin's Reprisal, and Disarming Counterblow's damage by 30% and heals you for 30% of Retaliation and Disarming Counterblow's damage. Balance of Power/Tip the Balance: deal 160% of absorbed damage back to attackers as life damage whenever you block, and heals you for the amount of damage dealt. Insatiable Hunger: 25% chance to drain 1% of enemy's mana when you attack to grant you a Pact; useful against caster enemies simply for the mana drain, and you can use the Pacts to cast Discharge, a powerful attack. Soul Feast: Soul Sickness and Creeping Death heal you for 50% of their damage. Power From The Masses: using AoE attacks reduces damage taken by 1% for each nearby enemy up to 10% for 10s.

-Buffs- Void: absorbs 5% of incoming magical damage and turns it into Pacts. Crest of the Abyss: grants 8 armor every time you are struck, up to 10 times, for 15s; refreshes every time you are struck, lasts an hour; talented (as it is in this build) it also reduces magic damage by 9%. Track Death Creatures: self-explanatory. Binding of Atrophy: enemies you hit in melee have their damage reduced by 5%. Shield of the Chosen: buffs 5% block chance and 387 armor. Aegis of Salvation: group endurance buff.

-Important Abilities- Agressive Block: smashes the enemy with your shield, dealing damage and increasing block by 10% for 15s; 15s cooldown. Pacifying Strike: deals damage and reduces their melee damage by 5% for 15s. Retaliation: counterattacks after blocking, not on GCD. Face Slam: damages and interrupts; 6s cooldown. Touch of Life: fully heals you; 10m cooldown. Shield Throw: ranged, damaging taunt; 8s cooldown. Sweeping Strike: hits 3 enemies; 15s cooldown. Judgement: attacks 10 enemies, forcing them to attack you; 1m cooldown. Life's Grace: ressurection, out of combat only (it is common courtesy that a tank should rez if they can, while the healer regens mana and/or heals residual damage on the group; its not like you have anything better to do till everyone is back up and full health, darnit!). Shield Charge: a ranged charge attack that deals damage and roots for 2 seconds; 15s cooldown. Disarming Counterblow: counters after a block to deal damage and disarm the enemy for 5s, not on GCD, 30s cooldown. Scales of Justice: combo/finisher that causes 6 nearby enemies to take damage the next time they attack; 8s cooldown. Light's Decree: ranged attack that deals damage to 6 enemies and causes your single-target attacks against them damage up to 5 nearby enemies for 12s; 12s cooldown. Reverent Protection: combo/finisher ability that protects nearby allies from damage (increased by number of points) for 30s; 3m cooldown. Paladin's Reprisal: counters after a block, dealing massive damage to 10 enemies and and stunning them for 3 seconds; not on GCD, 1m cooldown. Ravaging Strike: deals damage and reduces armor for 15s. Plague Bringer: causes all Reaver soul DoTs cast in the next 12s to spread to nearby enemies; 10s cooldown. Soul Sickness: a DoT that heals you for 50% of the damage done; lasts 15s, 15s cooldown. Blood Fever: attack and DoT that debuffs enemy's hit chance by 5% for 12s. Necrotic Wounds: another DoT, lasts 15s. Grim Lure: ranged taunt, no damage dealt, 8s cooldown. Vicious Cleave: hits 3 targets in melee range. Concussion: blast of air that deals damage to 10 nearby enemies and forces them to attack you, 1m cooldown. Weakening Essence: reduces enemy movement speed in AoE radius around you, builds threat even though it does no damage; 2m cooldown. Infestestion: attack that stays dormant for 8s then deals stacking damage for each of your Reaver DoTs on the target; 30s cooldown. Reckless Strike: Attack that deals extra damage per stack of Pacts that you have. Devouring Blow: combo/finisher that deals damage, drains mana equal to 50% of the damage dealt, and grants you Pacts. Discharge: discharges all of your Pacts into the target at range for potentially massive damage (I've seen people one-shot by this in PvP... my cleric was one of them on one occasion >.< 20 vs 29 was bad idea...)

-Casting Priority- Light's Decree > Shield Charge > Scales of Justice > Judgement > Concussion > Weakening Essence > Face Slam > Plague Bringer > Soul Sickness > Blood Fever > Necrotic Wounds > Pacifying Strike > Aggressive Block > Retaliation > Sweeping Strike > Vicious Cleave > Infestation > Devouring Blow > Discharge > Reckless Strike. Upon entering combat, if there are multiple enemies the tank's first task is to subdue all of them; if you know the fights will go on longer than 1m, I recommend using all of them except Weakening Essence right at the start to get a huge head start on aggro; if fights on average are lasting longer than 2m, use Weakening Essence as well. After you have their attention, it is time to go on the defensive. First you use the Reaver Soul to put Soul Sickness on the enemies; in AoE situations, using Plague Bringer will spread it to the other enemies, increasing the number of incoming self-heals. After/alongside this comes the other debuffing attacks; focus them on the target you feel will do the most damage to you, or else just focus on one enemy and continuously debuff that one, as long as one is doing less damage that's less for the healer to worry about. Don't try to cycle through the enemies debuffing each one at a time, you're wasting time, losing aggro, and not accomplishing anything. If it is AoE just continue with the AoE attacks to maintain aggro; if it is single target, right after doing your debuff cycle you want to slap Infestation on real quick so that it procs off your DoTs for burst aggro; just because you have their attention right now doesn't mean the DPS in your group won't still pull somehow. Once you have that down and have a couple seconds to spare, start using your combo points, wherever you get them, to power Devouring Strike; it's the only one of the basic finishers that generates aggro, has the most damage, and on targets with mana, it will drain them and fund you Pacts to increase your DPS with. Discharge is a tricky thing... it can do great amounts of damage, but you will hold steadier aggro from Reckless Strike if you leave the Pacts to passively buff its damage.

Edited, Feb 10th 2011 6:32pm by ehlionney

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spec-builder, Ehli-san! -~I'm not a strategist, I'm a tactician. Strategy is what you plan out ahead of time, tactics are what you do when you're in the thick, blades swinging and blood flowing. No strategist ever lives to become a hero.~-

Feel free to add your input, ideas, or your own builds (with some form of explanation what's going on with it, you don't need to copy my format). I'm not going to "reserve" future posts because I have another 20 of these coming along :) (I have WAY too much time on my hands now that I quit WoW in preparation for Rift -_- )

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spec-builder, Ehli-san! -~I'm not a strategist, I'm a tactician. Strategy is what you plan out ahead of time, tactics are what you do when you're in the thick, blades swinging and blood flowing. No strategist ever lives to become a hero.~-

The basic idea is to tank whilst being able to throw out AoE heals for the people close by.

I chose druid to help when I'm solo adventuring(healing faerie pets FTW). There are 10 points in druid to help with mana upkeep (Fae Hammer)and that also means I get a shield (of oak) which sounds useful.

I chose Sentinel for the AoE healing (part of the point), I didn't know whether to go for an increase in Healing power or an increase in spell power for I went for spell power. This then allows me to buff endurance for an hour,as you can see i then put points into "light concentration" because it seemed the most useful for what I was trying to accomplish, the final 10 points that i put into Sentinel where because they where AoE-specific.

Finally I chose Justicar because (obviously) it's the cleric tanking soul points where spent to reduce mana cost/ reduce damage taken except for reparation which was taken because for it's healing.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0ctuh.xx0s0o0x0o.txksuzuso.xg0zoVindicator 21, Paragon 31, Paladin 14 A PvP build for Warriors. This concept focuses on the Vindicator's first focus, which grants the ability to block with your weapons and culminates in a 50% raid bubble. I chose the Paladin in support of this because of the buffs to block and certain tanking abilities. Paragon is the core of the offensive side of the build due to its damage output, ranged capability, and defensive cooldowns. Make friends with a pocket healer that has a bit of survivability themselves and you can halt an enemy team's advance for a bit. If you were ever PvPing in another game and wished you were able to taunt and tank the enemy players, here is the next best thing.

-Important talents- Advantage: 5% crit buff to allies when you block. Subdue: your taunts reduce enemy damage to anyone other than you by 60% (one of the most important reasons for going as deep as I did in Paladin, for Judgement.) The Art of Defense: you can now block without using a shield. Duality of Mind/Grace of the Five Rings: the Paragon soul grants a lot of survivability through parry, one of the reasons this build makes you a perfect flag runner/position defender. Force of Will: follow-up attacks deal 60% more damage; most of your damage in this build will be through follow-up attacks, so this is more useful than other DPS talents in the Paragon soul. Martial Shield: blocks have a 25% chance to give you a combo point. Serenity: 30 power regained when you dodge/parry.

-Buffs- Focus of Body: group strength buff. Way of the Mountain: follow-up attacks deal 20% more damage and cannot be knocked back; this is the most important buff, because your role in this build is to hold a point or run a flag, etc; with this you cannot get knocked away from your destination, or out of range of healing, or off a point; it is FAR superior to Way of the River, which only gives 3% crit. Aegis of Vitality: single-target buff to endurance; it may be a pain to buff everyone individually, but many other classes have group endurance buffs so you probably will only need this one when you respawn anyways, and going far enough into Paladin for the group version is not worthwhile.

-Important abilities- Break Free: 5m cooldown CC breaker. Guard: absorbs 50% of target's damage; cast on an ally that is squishy, or preferably the pocket healer you bribed/bullied into PvPing with you, to keep them alive longer so they can back you up. Thunderous Leap: leap up to 20 yards into an enemy formation, dealing damage and stunning them all for 5s, 45s cooldown. Trauma: 30% healing reduction to target for 15s, 30s cooldown. Phalanx: 50% damage reduction to your group, 2m cooldown; I have not been able to track down the duration of this ability, but regardless it will prove very useful when both teams clash in the middle; using this in conjunction with Judgement to debuff their damage to anyone else but you by 60%, and an additional 50% from this, and what do you know, your team is taking no damage at all and still able to unleash havoc on the enemy. Hold the Line: increases nearby allies' dodge/block/parry by 10% for 30s, 2m cooldown. Turn the Blade: a follow-up attack that counters an enemy's parry or block, 6s cooldown; this is most likely your only way of hurting someone with a similar build, and also your Achilles' Heel; many of the various souls have abilities similar to this, and if they are good players/PvPers they will be using it much to your dismay. Path of the Wind: ranged attack, use to harry running foes or to build up combo points when enemies are still closing. Flinching Strike/Face Slam: exactly as in my discussion of the paragon/riftblade/champion crit build, two interrupts on 10s and 6s cooldown, different energy costs so use whichever fits your needs or even use both if needed. Path of the Raptor: follow-up version of Path of the Wind that deals almost twice as much damage due to your talents/buffs (80% more). Fleet of Foot: 50% run speed bonus for 21s with talents, 1m cooldown; limited use on base defense maps, but great for flag running, especially if you are Eth; get out of their range and the racial sprint becomes available when you drop combat, offering almost constant uptime if you are lucky; if you don't mind wasting your AoE stun leap, you can use that to increase the gap even more. Path of the Tempest: if enemies choose to lurk just out of your reach while you are in base defense mode, you can use your Path attacks to build up combo points and then use this powerful finisher to hit them where it hurts at range. Shifting Blades: combo/finisher that causes up to 3 of your following attack abilities to proc an attack from your offhand weapon dealing 25/50/75% of the original damage; 15s cooldown. Path of the Hurricane: follow-up attack that deals massive AoE damage to 8 enemies in a cone in front of you; if you use your Path of the Wind on an incoming group while on base defense, you can blast them with this just as they bottle-neck for a real dirty hit. Wrist Strike: follow-up that disarms target for 5s, 30s cooldown. Touch of Tranquility: 15s incapacitation, 30s cooldown; broken by damage dealt. Death Touch: follow up that deals massive damage and drains 10% strength and dexterity every second for 8 seconds, 1m cooldown. Bend Like the Reed: combo/finisher that gives you 25/50/75% parry for 10s, 30s cooldown. Predictable Movements: combo/finisher that reflects up to 3 attacks for the next 12s, 2m cooldown. Light's Hammer: ranged 3s stun that also deals damage, 1m cooldown. Pacifying Strike: deals damage and reduces enemy melee damage by 5% for 15s. Retaliation: massive follow-up attack that procs from blocking; 6s cooldown to keep you from being too overpowered, hehe. Touch of Life: full heal, 10m cooldown. Shield Throw: ranged taunt that deals damage, 8s cooldown. Judgement: AoE taunt attack, deals damage; 1m cooldown. Sweeping Strike: attacks 3 targets in melee range, 15s cooldown.

-Casting priority- There isn't really much to talk about when it comes to casting priority for PvP; the vast majority of your combat will either result in you dead or the enemy in very short time; being all alone with no-one to back you up will usually mean you die, with your healer along it will be long and boring, with a DPS ally around as well chances are in your favor that the enemy will die quickly. So mostly it is all about common sense, reactions, and the advice I gave about the particular abilities in the previous section.

Edited, Feb 10th 2011 6:36pm by ehlionney

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spec-builder, Ehli-san! -~I'm not a strategist, I'm a tactician. Strategy is what you plan out ahead of time, tactics are what you do when you're in the thick, blades swinging and blood flowing. No strategist ever lives to become a hero.~-

I actually looked back at the thread after my last post and realized how darned hard it was to read/find anything in my previous posts so I cleaned them up a bit; also, as requested, Rogue builds coming up :) I was not near as impressed with the variety of Warrior builds that I could think of (aside from going 51/15/0 in most of the trees for specific fights, but those are given and frankly boring). Not sure if the lack of variety was my own lack of interest for some reason, although I have always been a big fan of warrior style characters. Rogue caught my eye a bit more creativity wise, so here goes.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0MpMV.xGtutqfRkk.0ARfk0bozRiftstalker 44, Assassin 22, Bladedancer 0 A tanking rogue that has access to full stealth and CC (Incapacitate) for precision pulls. I skipped the 51 point tanking ability, because while powerful, I felt the stealth and access to the later abilities in Assassin made up for it's absence. Bladedancer is just there for the dodge cooldown. Bladedancer has many nice tanking abilities, but that's for another build, hehe. This one focuses on some of the more unorthodox survival abilities that are offered by the Assassin soul.

-Important Talents- Rift Scavenger: unused combo points heal you 6% of your health per point when the target dies. Rift Barrier: shields you for 25% of each attack, absorbing up to a total of 50% of your health, for 15s after plane shifting. Shadow Mastery: plane shifting abilities have 15s less on their cooldown. Hasted Time: 30% run speed increase after plane shifting. Freedom of Movement: plane shifting makes you immune to stuns, roots and snares for 2s. Silent Footsteps/Improved Stealth: able to stay stealthed permanently, 30% less likely to be detected, and decreases the speed debuff to 0. Cloak and Dagger: after using Assassinate, Paralyzing Strike or Jagged Strike, damage dealt is buffed 15% and damage taken is decreased 15% for 10s.

-Buffs- Planebound Resilience: self-only endurance buff. Track Air Creatures: yet another free ability that seems to serve little real purpose; self-explanatory. Stalker Phase: increases damage 15% and reduces threat 50% for 10s after using Shadow Stalk or Shadow Assault. Guardian Phase: increases armor 50%, endurance 30%, resistances by 50, threat generation by 100%, but reduces damage dealt 30%; the primary tanking buff for Rogues. Lethal Poison: enchants your weapons to have 20% chance of dealing extra damage and making the target 5% more likely to get critted for 15s. Elusiveness: stealth; allows you to move in and Incapacitate an enemy for 30s before pulling; never leave home without CC again! Expose Weakness: another ability able to be used from stealth, causes the target to take extra damage from melee attacks and bleeds for 20s. Leeching Poison: 20% chance to deal extra damage and steal health when you hit enemies.

-Important abilities- Planar Strike: although it deals low damage, outputs a lot of threat. Shadow Shift: plane shift 15 yards forward, 45s cooldown. Guarded Steel: a combo/finisher that increases your armor for up to 1m. Annihilate: combo/finisher that increases your attack power for up to 1m. Rift Disturbance: AoE attack that hits 10 nearby enemies, deals damage, and debuffs their attack and spell power for 15s, 8s cooldown. Instigate: 8s cooldown ranged taunt; no damage dealt. Shadow Stalk: plane shift to behind the target, breaking snares, stuns and roots; 45s cooldown. Shadow Blitz: plane shifts and deals damage to 10 nearby enemies, 45s cooldown. Shadow Warp: plane shifts to a specific location; 45s cooldown. Memory Capture/Flashback: marks a position for 5m that you can later plane shift back to as long as you are within 50 yards; 45s cooldown. Defer Death: delays all incoming damage for 10s; 2m cooldown. Planar Repulsion: plane shifts all nearby enemies 15 meters away from you; 2m cooldown. Phantom Blow: attack that deals damage and causes you to take 2% less damage per stack, going to 3, for 20s. Rift Guard: combo/finisher that puts an absorbing shield on you for 30s, absorbing 30% of incoming damage up to 120% of your health (or 190%, the wording is ambiguous). Shadow Blitz: powerful attack from behind using a plane shift, 45s cooldown. Rift Prison: imprisons enemy for 6s, 20s cooldown, incapacitating them but they are unable to be damaged till it is over. Planar Switch: transfers all combo points from one target to another, 10s cooldown. Foul Play: stuns enemy for 4s, 30s cooldown. Blinding Powder: confuses enemy 10s, damage frees target; 1m cooldown. Assassinate: deals massive damage if you are behind the target; best used for stealth-pulls after Incapacitating an enemy, along with Expose Weaknesses; also builds 2 combo points instead of just 1. Malicious Strike: deals damage and reduces enemy run speed by 70% for 8s. Baneful Touch: combo/finisher that increases poison damage dealt by 50% for up to 1m. Paralyzing Strike: deals damage, 2 combo points, and stuns enemy for 4s. Poison Malice: increases poison damage by 100% and deals damage back to attackers for 15s, 2m cooldown. Side Steps: adds 50% dodge for 15s, 2m cooldown.

-Casting priority- The opening pull will be different depending on how you go about it, whether you stealth in and incapacitate an enemy then pull the rest, or just plane shift into the middle of the pack and go all out, etc. If they are heavy hitting and you need more survivability, the first method is better, because after CCing one of them you can open up your attacks with an Assassinate to get two combo points instantly and pop Rift Guard. Or you can do the Assassinate and then Shadow Assault one of the enemies on the far side of the pack from the CC'd one, so that they are away from it preventing it from being accidentally woken up, giving you a combo point from the attack, and giving you Rift Barrier which is like Rift Guard but doesn't cost combo points. Any which way of it, your pulls will always happen differently according to the situation. If you use the stealth pulling method, which is how I'm going to explain the priority system, make sure your party knows that they cannot open up full speed until you have gotten your defensive abilities active and started working on aggro. Stealth > Incapacitate > Expose Weakness (just this time, takes too much energy points in the rest of the fight, so not worth it) > Assassinate (2 combos, also grants you +15% dealt, -15% taken damage for 15s) > Shadow Assault (1 combo point, gives you Rift Barrier) > Rift Disturbance (AoE debuff to enemy AP/SP plus aggro) > Shadow Blitz (1) > Phantom Blow x1 (1)> Guarded Steel(5 point finisher, for your armor buff, never let this drop off) > Phantom Blow x2 (2 combo points, to get your other 4% damage resistance, then never let it fall off the rest of the fight) > Rift Prison (on any random enemy, takes them out of the fight for 6s) > Foul Play (4s stun, use on a different enemy to take them out temporarily as well) > Blinding Powder (yet another 10s CC) > Shadow Stalk (to the target you CC'd earlier, he should be about to come active again; also puts Rift Barrier back up again) > Assassinate (2 more combos, +15%/-15% damage again) > Phantom Blow x1 (to keep it up and get your 5th combo point) > Rift GuardNow you have finished your pull, have all your defensive abilities active, and should have aggro on everything as well. Next is the priority for the other abilities you have available. Everything in the pull sequence takes priority over everything in the combat sequence if the buff is about to fall off. Baneful Touch (5 point finisher that increases your poison damage 50% for 1m; helps with aggro and from what I understand, increases the healing from your Leeching Poison) > Paralyzing Strike (gives 2 combos, damage and 4s stun) > Planar Strike (1) > Annihilate (5 point finisher gives an AP buff for 1m, also deals damage) > Final Blow (5 point finisher that deals decent damage, this should be your main finisher in between using the finishers that apply 1m buffs or defensive features). The opening for a tanking rogue is a lot more complicated than any other class, as their survivability depends entirely on maintaining buffs that come from attacks. After all of your buffs are up, you should have a "rotation" consisting of Paralyzing Strike to maintain stuns, your +15%/-15% damage buff, and for rapid combo buildup; Phantom Blow to maintain your 6% damage reduction; Planar Strike for more combos and aggro; Rift Disturbance for AoE aggro and the AP/SP debuff; and Final Blow for damage output when there's nothing more important to use your combo points on. All the other attacks either give 1m buffs so won't need to be used often, or are CC's on cooldowns so use them when you can, or are Assassinate which only works when behind someone and Paralyzing Strike gives the same buff along with a 4s stun so you won't miss it anyways.

EDIT: I just remembered something; when fighting an enemy immune to stuns (like bosses?) replace Paralyzing Strike with Puncture; it gives 2 combo points, ignores armor, and deals damage plus a bleed; it won't give you the 15% damage buff/damage taken decrease, but will help with your aggro on the boss and offer the same quick point generation. It might also be beneficial to some people to take points out of Riftstalker (maybe 4 points out of Shadow Mastery, as you won't be needing to plane shift as much in PvE, you should be able to manage with the ones you have on regular cooldowns) to get Jagged Strike from Assassin soul, which gives the +/-15% buff and 2 combos, plus deals great damage with a bleed, and bosses won't be immune to it.

Edited, Feb 11th 2011 8:14am by ehlionney

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spec-builder, Ehli-san! -~I'm not a strategist, I'm a tactician. Strategy is what you plan out ahead of time, tactics are what you do when you're in the thick, blades swinging and blood flowing. No strategist ever lives to become a hero.~-

Argh; I had intended to do a full synopsis of the rest of my builds, but have other things I need to take care of so here's the rest of them in brief.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0MMiT.0VMft0b0z.V0toGo.VV0cEz0z0MSaboteur 27, Assassin 21, Nightblade 18 A bomb-tossing, spell-flinging sneak; basically, a ninja! Muahahahahahaha! Seriously though, this build focuses on being all-around effective; sneak in, set up your bombs, and then wreak havoc from range or in melee; you have access to perm stealth, AoE attacks which Assassin has no access to on its own, quite a bit of CC, a misdirect, and quite a few ways of increasing the party's damage. You may not top charts, if they ever allow a Recount-ish addon but you have quite a few ways of making the group much more "pro" than they would otherwise be. (not that I have anything against Recount, it is an amazing tool if used right, but 99% of the time it is not)

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0McMi.Vcdqioskoz.0VRft0boz.V0xBard 33, Assassin 23, Nightblade 10 Similar to the last build, this one is all about support while able to deal decent damage. Also like the other build, this one can fight effectively at range or in melee. Has access to full stealth, some CC, able to offer a bit of group healing with Cadence, although healing is not the focus.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0MfNT.VGtRodVzd.VMs0ue0soVzMarksman 32, Ranger 34, Saboteur 0 A "hunter" with maximum kiting ability. Built for speed leveling, world PvP, and if any instance fights require kiting, this will be amazing at it. Run speed buffs, CC, CC breakers, slows, knockbacks galore; access to all the types of pets, and just far enough into Marksman to get the cooldown reset.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zzvR.AResRfiqkrz.xx0VArchon 51, Warlock 15, Chloromancer 0 Support build yet again, this time for mages. The full range of Archon abilities for maximum potential, with warlock for faster Charge build-up and the fear, and Chloromancer Radiant Spores for utility. I know I originally said that I would avoid the 51pt builds because they were obvious, but I see far too few Mage builds making use of the 25% faster Charge building from Warlock, and I love DPS/support builds that offer a minor bit of healing on the side without actually devoting points into a healing build. (I think that is counter-productive, to be honest; either heal or DPS, or heal by DPSing, dont mix them; as they say, the best defense is a good offense; you finishing the battle faster saves the healer's mana more than you taking away DPS to toss a few heals)

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0zRsw.EdIuqVckRR.Mciz.xzMChloromancer 45, Dominator 13, Necromancer 8 Another 51pt spec that I would not normally mention except that I also see few people taking advantage of Dominator as a secondary soul for the CC; you can never have too much CC, and anyone telling you otherwise is either pro or "pro". As a side benefit, you get a pet, although at max level he will be too weak to deal good damage. However, if you have him on passive at your side, you can leach his health off to regen your mana. Accelerated Decay is also pretty nice, especially on bosses, and you get a reflect, an AoE silence, a thorns spell to put on your tank, and a mana drain. You literally cannot go OOM with this build, and still have all the major advantages of the healing side even after wasting points on unused attacks (IE all of the points in Necromancer except the point in Consumption are basically just there to get you far enough to leech mana from your pet's life)

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spec-builder, Ehli-san! -~I'm not a strategist, I'm a tactician. Strategy is what you plan out ahead of time, tactics are what you do when you're in the thick, blades swinging and blood flowing. No strategist ever lives to become a hero.~-

Will soon be adding the others, had not been expecting other things to come up, wasn't really all that much going on until I actually decided I wanted to do something... funny how that happens sometimes, isn't it? -_-

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spec-builder, Ehli-san! -~I'm not a strategist, I'm a tactician. Strategy is what you plan out ahead of time, tactics are what you do when you're in the thick, blades swinging and blood flowing. No strategist ever lives to become a hero.~-